


Self Realization From The Finale

by WinchesterWife



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Emotional, Family, Marriage, Other, Personal Growth, References to Supernatural (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:02:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27881189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterWife/pseuds/WinchesterWife
Summary: A Non-fiction piece that I recently wrote.  This was the direct post to my Facebook page that included the lengthy piece that I wrote.  A dedication to the SPN Family.  May we always stay strong and together.
Relationships: SPN Family - Relationship
Kudos: 2





	Self Realization From The Finale

I hope this is okay to post here. Please feel free to delete it if it isn't. I just came to realization earlier and wrote a piece regarding those feelings that I felt was important to share with others. 

Looking back on my posting lately I realized that I've slightly over saturated my page with Supernatural related content. I'm not apologizing for that, mind you, but it made me realize something. Most of you think I'm mental or have no grasp on reality. Heck..I know that there are several of you that are only on my friends list because you can't stand the ground I walk on and want to enjoy a laugh or two at my ridiculousness. I'm okay with that; it keeps me famous. Hehe. But for the ones that care about me but yet don't understand why I'm posting so much, I decided to share this.  
I keep a smash journal that I have used to chronicle my responses and feelings to the last season of Supernatural. Upon finishing it I realized that it was a pretty solid piece that explained everything I had been feeling and going through this past year, from the show to my personal life and more. I figured that it was a good idea to share it with all of you. Maybe it will help you understand the connection that I have to this show and the family it has built. And yes... it is a family. That part I don't expect you to understand unless you were in the thick of it all. But maybe I won't seem as crazy to you after reading this. Maybe it will help you process your own feelings on things as well. Here's hoping. Let's see what happens:

December 02, 2020  
Two weeks tomorrow. I almost find it funny that a work of fiction has left me in such an emotional state that it took me this long to come to grips with its ending, even to as small enough a degree to be able to write about it at all. But many of us know that there is much more to it than that. And so I begin.

I still remember the day that my late husband (at the time, only my best friend) talked me into watching Supernatural. He knew my family background. He knew the craziness I had seen and experienced in my life. So he felt this show would be one that I would like. Heck...that I would even find therapeutic. Season Two was only a few episodes into its television premiere and Jay (my husband) had the Season One box set, so I joined him at his apartment to pop in the first disc. Man, was he right. It WAS good. It WAS therapy. I had zero idea, however, that both Supernatural and Jay would become so much more to me.

In the past fifteen years all of the events that I am about to list have happened as a direct result of that show, the cast that brought it to life, the family that the fandom has grown into, and/or the husband that introduced me to it all in the first place:  
I’ve become part of an extended family that has survived births, deaths, marriages, divorces, natural disasters, wars in home countries, and suicide attempts.  
I have participated in charity work that has done the unthinkable and saved countless lives in the process.

My writing career has taken off in various ways, from reigniting my love of fanfiction, finishing two non-fiction books to be submitted to agents, participating in Nanowrimo every year, and a two year stint as a staff writer for a website/podcast that garnered hundreds of thousands of views daily/weekly.

I developed a hobby and talent for creating fanvids (fandom music videos.)

I have survived a daily fight with PTSD, grief, and depression, all due to complete strangers who, despite never meeting me, would never let me quit.

I figured out that yes, there are people in this universe that feels that I am worth it, that I am enough, and that I deserve to be loved. And I was lucky enough to marry one of them.

From that night forward- from Jay introducing me to Supernatural all the way up to his passing- we watched every new episode together. He managed to finish Season Fourteen with me, but that was as far as the universe allowed his journey to go. No one could have expected that a simple outpatient surgical procedure would be what took him from us. From meeting him to his final day he was in my life for twenty years. I’m forty-one years old; half of me is gone. To this day I still smell him in my clothes, hear his advice and opinions in my mind. Smile when something I see, hear, or smell triggers a memory or inside joke we shared. It’s a pain that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Starting Season Fifteen was hard on me, and for several reasons. I’m not going to argue the fact that fifteen years equaled an emotional investment and attachment to the characters. I’m human, for goodness sakes. But it was more than that. This was the first time in fifteen years that Jay hadn’t been there with me. It was the end of something important in my life and it was the start of a painful realization on the next step in my life: Even the most simple and trivial moments would no longer be shared with the man I love.

I haven’t watched the finale since the night it aired. I doubt that I ever will again. With every passing second of the episode that night I felt my husband slipping away from me again. Then came the last few minutes. Then came Sam in that hospital bed…  
It had been a long time since I had felt anything close to a PTSD flashback. By the way, they aren’t fun. But it was so many things in Sam’s final moments that served as a direct punch in the gut for me. Favorite character gone...check. Losing my husband a second time...check…  
When I say “Losing my husband all over again,” however, that statement has many forms. This show only existed in my life because of Jay. Losing it meant losing him a second time.. But for reasons that are complicated to explain and that most likely only my family in the Bust Dean Outta Hell Brigade would understand, Sam Winchester was all that I had left of the man I married. So as that scene played out...I just really can’t tell you everything that happened on that screen because the second that it started my heart started pounding, I couldn’t breathe, and I ran from the room gasping the words “I can’t do this…”

I made it halfway down the hall before I collapsed, hitting my knees as I cried alone in the dark hallway.

I’m not emotional, and it was never as simple for me as losing it over a fictional character. I didn’t think about it at that moment, but I later came to realize that it was about losing the show, losing Jay again, and also (as strange as this sounds) losing my home and my safety.

I’ve seen many Tik Toc videos made for Supernatural to the tune of a song called “Home,” by Bebe Rexha, Machine Gun Kelly, and X Ambassadors. The song only played in those videos in small snippets so I looked up the full song on Youtube. When I did I realized just what I wasn’t getting about the emotions I was feeling. The lyrics made me cry all over again:

“Look, I been through so much pain  
And it's hard to maintain any smile on my face.  
‘Cause there's a madness on my brain  
So I gotta make it back,  
But my home ain’t on the map,.  
Gotta follow what I’m feeling,  
Just to be sure these last days are better.  
And if I have any enemies, to give me the strength  
To look the Devil in the face and make it home safe.”

I sat there after hearing the entire song for the first time, staring off into space as all the pieces finally came together for me. It wasn’t just about losing my husband again. It was the irrational fear that what the show, this cast, and this fandom had built, would fall apart and vanish now that it was all over. Between characters and their fictional lives that I related to in the most painful of ways to the family that I had been welcomed into,even down to the men that brought these characters to life and despite never meeting me had literally saved my life SEVERAL TIMES OVER, this fandom...this family...was the only place that I felt safe outside of my husband’s arms. I had already lost more than I deserved. More than anyone deserved. The thought of losing all of that as well seized my heart and scared the living hell out of me, and anyone who knows me knows that I don’t scare easily.

It’s funny to me how people that claim to be logical or realists can look at reactions like mine and say that it’s either irrational, childish, or even mentally disturbed. I’m fine with those labels; I’ve been called worse. I am just glad that I was able to work through all of the emotions and confusion in the end. I understand now the full spectrum of emotions this show and its ending have given me and why I felt them. And it doesn’t make me a mental case, irrational, or lost to reality. It makes me human, it makes me a widow who still mourns, and someone who is a part of something bigger than herself. It makes me someone dealing with more grief, loss, and pain than anyone should ever have to bear, but who knows that I have people to back me up. It makes me a person who learned to fight and never slow down. And I am perfectly okay with all of that.

So, for the family that I share worldwide who will always lift me up, for the husband who believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself, and for the cast who remind me daily without knowing that my life is worth fighting for, thank you. I know without a single doubt that I am who I am and where I am because of all of you. That’s a debt that I know I can never repay. But give me time. I’ll think of something.


End file.
